Millet Meditation

'They could make a meditation class out of this' I thought to myself as I wielded the sickle in my hand. I grabbed the millet with my left hand and sliced it clear with the sickle in my right. Very Zen. I tossed the millet head into the basket and glanced over at the grandmother standing next to me. She was repeating my action with increased skill and speed. She was a good foot shorter than me, which makes her the ideal height for harvesting millet, unlike myself. I stood stooped with my knees slightly bent and my back hunched to just reach the millet heads. I was contemplating if kneeling would be a better idea.
Grandma gave me a kind smile for my harvesting attempts. She was swathed in clothes but looked so small and fragile underneath. She had a large cloth wrap around her head, which held her hair up and trailed down her back. She wore a fake North Face fleece jumper, traditional printed skirt, trekking socks that were at least 5 sizes too big for her and a very worn pair of pink crocs. Her face and hands were dark leather from 50 years of hard work in the sun. The only lines imprinted on her face were from smiling and as she caught my gaze she showed how they had come to be with a gentle grin. Her hands continued to slice through the millet stems as though they had eyes themselves. Her decorative, oversized nose ring jangled and swung as she worked. It was a symbol of her marriage although her husband had died 26 years ago.
We worked in silent unison, swapping places occasionally so she could clear the stalks from where I had collected the millet. I would be so happy to do this all day, however my back began to say otherwise. I loved the simplicity, the fact that the food that grows is the food we eat, that no capitalist business venture is sought, no fat cats or middle management bullshit. We plant the millet, then when it grows, we harvest it, then we plant oats, then we harvest it and so the cycle goes.
The family's chickens ran around us, keen to steal a piece of millet from our basket. Grandma shoed them off and gently scolded them. Local villagers walked past and we greeted them while continuing our work. Each commented on the white girl "Mya" who was helping in the field. The unanimous verdict was that I looked quite hilarious.
The sun dipped beneath the hill and dusk was upon us. The fading light meant it was quitting time. Grandma stood up, said something in Nepali to me and smiled. I must have looked blank as she tried again, simpler sentences this time, "Dhanyabad.... Chia?" I smiled and followed her inside, nothing is started or finished in Nepal without tea.